Senator Lounge, Vienna – where even the showers are arranged by status.

I travelled on 1 Feb from Vienna, via Frankfurt and Addis Ababa to Johannesburg. As it was my first trip of the new status year I was a little nervous when I approached the agent with my out of date United 1K card.

United seems increasingly incapable to delivery cards on time, especially in Europe. In my specific case, they had a whole year to get me my new one as they knew I was to be 1K for 2014 as a 3 Million Miler retains that status for life. United used to have their cards expire at the end of February and I wish they would return to that arrangement.

Indeed, after a lecture from the agent I was directed to the Business Lounge. Luckily a LH Senator behind me guested me in to the Senator lounge, much to chagrin of the agent at the door. I had offered to show the agent my card on my phone, but this was unacceptable. Clearly he expected me to have the desire and knowledge to forge a card on the United App. (How desirable do they think their lounge is?).

Anyway, the lounge was fairly empty when I arrived, and the number of visitors (it was a Saturday afternoon) ebbed and flowed whilst I was there.

There was a good selection of hot and cold food and soup available:

The drinks were self-pour and had a good range of spirits and wines available:

The lounge had a number of different seating areas:

When going to the bathroom which is shared between the three lounges, Business, Senator and First Class, I came across the sign on a shower door:

So even washing is now status based at Lufthansa.

I had a ten minute walk to my Schengen gate, where I found that the flight was operating late – 10 minutes which turned in to 30 minutes and made it a tight connection at Frankfurt.